Laurea International Week started at the Leppävaara campus

​Laurea UAS’s annual International Week gathers teaching and other staff from Laurea’s partner institutions from around the world. This year’s International Week attracted about 60 participants from 20 different countries. All in all, they represented 38 different higher education institutions.

This year the event is held at Laurea Leppävaara and Otaniemi campuses in the city of Espoo April 16th - 20th.  The week was kicked off at the Leppävaara campus on Monday when the international guests were welcomed to Laurea. The first day at Laurea also included a traditional food fair which offered the participants a chance to share a taste of their home countries.

Reunion with Laurea after 13 years

For some participants of the Laurea International Week this was the first visit to Finland while some were more familiar with Finland and Laurea UAS. For professor David Riha from Prague University of Economics this week in Laurea is like a reunion:

- It’s a pleasure to be here at Laurea UAS again. 13 years ago, in 2005, I came to Laurea as an exchange student and now I’ve came here in an opposite position as a visiting professor, he says.
- My goal for this International Week is to network with people and discover even more about the Finnish culture.

The International Week’s programme includes guest lectures by teachers from different countries and workshops for other personnel. Senior lecturer Adriana Veronica Litra from Romanian Transilvania University of Brasov is looking forward to learn more about Finnish education system:

- During this week I’d like to learn to know the Finnish system - that’s why I wanted to participate this International Week in the first place, she says.
- I try to attend as many lectures and presentation as I can which deal with my field which is economics. I’m also curious to meet new people and learn new methods of teaching and interacting with students.

Focus on digitalization

The theme of this year’s International Week is ‘Going global in the digital era’. Digitalization is also a subject that attracted a group of students from Belgian university of KU Leuven to participate in Laurea’s international week.

- At the moment we are working on an innovation project and we are here to learn about new trends is digitalization that we could apply in our project, students Lorenz Mangerin, Jasper Zaboli and Andy Olemans explain.

- Finland is a very advanced country when it comes to applying new technology.

Already during our first days here in Finland we’ve learned that Finns are more open minded about using new technology than people in Belgium.